At plenary, Congress talks of inequality, alliances

The three-day Congress plenary, which concluded here on Sunday, vowed to step up the Opposition’s fight against the policies of Narendra Modi government at the Centre. Terming the BJP’s policies as “extreme right-wing”, the Congress also tried to draw a line of difference with the party’s economic, foreign and development policies.

The party’s new president, Rahul Gandhi, whose appointment was approved by the All India Congress Committee plenary, asked Congress workers to put aside their differences aside and work together to ensure victory in the upcoming elections. His mother and ex-president of the party, Sonia Gandhi, had on Saturday endorsed the politics of alliances to dethrone the BJP.

Former prime minister Manmohan Singh said the BJP had messed up the economy. “The ill-considered demonetisation and hastily implemented GST have destroyed small-scale enterprises,” Singh said.

The political resolution of the party gave a clarion call to adopt a pragmatic approach for co-operation with all like-minded parties and evolve a “common workable programme” to defeat the BJP-RSS in the 2019 elections. The resolution said the Congress is proud of its “illustrious history, legacy” and boasted that it remained the party that truly represents India: multi-cultural, multilingual and multi-religious. “Congress Party is committed to serve people of India at a time when the country stands at a crossroad as it faces the threat posed by authoritarian, divisive and disruptive forces,” it said.

Flags income inequality

The economic resolution of the party called for a rethinking on its own policies. The resolution acknowledged that income inequality is a global challenge confronting all modern economies. “Contemporary economic development paradigms that favour returns to capital over returns to labour have resulted in an alarming disparity in income and wealth among individuals. Recent research by economists Thomas Piketty and Lucas Chancel has documented that individual income inequality in India has widened significantly in the last three years. Moreover, economists have also highlighted India’s widening regional economic disparity among its States,” it said.

Introducing the resolution, former finance minister P Chidambaram said the BJP government had pushed people into poverty. He said the number of people below the poverty line had risen in the last four years. “It is the greatest disservice the BJP government did to the people of India,” he added.

A prominent leader from the Rahul Gandhi camp and Kerala legislator, VD Satheeshan, who spoke after Chidambaram, called for a relook into the liberalisation policies. “We have changed even Nehruvian policies as per the demand of time. Now, the inequality is widening. It is time to take a relook into the liberalisation policies (sic),” Satheeshan said.

Attacks BJP

In his concluding remarks, Rahul Gandhi said Prime Minister Narendra Modi had been silent on problems such as farm distress, scams and unemployment. He was, instead, trying to divert the attention of the people.

“The Centre always claims that India is the fastest growing economy in the world. But millions of youth face unemployment. Farmers are committing suicide. But Modi invites people to India Gate to perform Yoga,” the Nehru-Gandhi scion said. The Congress chief also attacked BJP President Amit Shah. “Congress can never be like BJP. The people of this country will accept a man accused of murder as BJP President. They will accept a man drunk with power in the BJP, but will never accept the same in the Congress,” he said. “The public will punish us if we do not match up to the standards. This is because BJP is voice of an organisation, while Congress is the voice of the nation,’’ Rahul said.

COMMENT NOW